Swiss pilots convicted for mid-air

[Cyclic Hotline]

Pilots convicted over fatal helicopter crash

swissinfo December 22, 2004 6:57 PM

Two pilots have been convicted for their role in a helicopter crash in Switzerland four years ago in which seven Indian tourists and a Swiss pilot died.

The two men were found guilty on Wednesday of negligent homicide, but the owner of the helicopter company was acquitted.

A district court in Sion in southwestern Switzerland gave the pilots, Christian Rosat and Jean-Jerome Pouget, suspended prison sentences. Rosat received five months and Pouget, four months.

But the court acquitted Bruno Bagnoud, head of the Air-Glaciers travel company, which operated the helicopters. The prosecution had sought a one-month suspended sentence for Bagnoud.

All three pleaded innocent to the charge of negligent homicide, claiming that the pilot who died in the crash was to blame.

Lawyers representing the pilots said they would be appealing against the sentences. The prosecutor called the verdicts “satisfactory”.

The accident – one of the worst of its kind in Switzerland – happened on September 26, 2000.

The seven Indian tourists were among a party of around 150 who were taking five-minute sightseeing trips over the Swiss Alps in the Sion area.

Two helicopters – a Bell Jet Ranger and an Alouette III – collided as they were preparing to land and crashed onto a football field in the village of Beuson.

All six passengers and the Swiss pilot on board the Bell Jet Ranger died. One tourist on the Alouette was also killed in the crash.

swissinfo with agencies

[Heliport]

News coverage of the accident - here (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/09/26/switzerland.crash.ap/)

[Thomas coupling]

Let me get this right:

There were three pilots originally. One died and the remaining two got suspended prison sentences. Both the remaining pilots have blamed the dead pilot for the crash. Is that right?????

[tecpilot]

The court found the two men guilty, because of the missing of special preparations to operate 2 helicopters in limited airspace and landing area. In the company FOM the accident ops was not correct described, the pilots don't talked pre-flight and inflight enough with each other and don't keeped the other helicopter in sight. The chief pilot was found guilty because of lacked security advices and rules in his flight ops. The owner of the helicopter company was acquitted. Rumours said the owner was making a lot of pressure to his pilots.

May be thats the "new" line of justice, and the JAR-OPS is behind the court. The postholders and the pilots taking the full responsibility for any problems in flight ops, not the owner. If the other pilot would be alive, the sentence could be the same i believe. 7 tourists died in the accident.

I'm not shure if the mass of pilots is clear in their mind about their responsibility. Sadly to say, that the accident ist nearly the same as some other. Mid-air of two ships on the final to the same landing site is a sadly series. And the deficiencies are mostly the same.

[Aesir]

I´m not getting this?

Who where the pilots convicted?

Was it the JetRanger pilot and the Alouette pilot who died in the crash, or the JR and Lama pilot, or the Lama & Chief pilot who was not on location, or what?

The report does not include the names of the pilots involved in the crash.

Swiss accident report (http://www.bfu.admin.ch/common/pdf/1771e)

http://www.swissinfo.org/xobix_media/images/keystone/2000/keyimg20000926_120217.jpg

[tecpilot]

Jetranger Pilot and Chiefpilot. JR Pilot as direct involved in negligent killing 7 tourists and the chiefpilot because of "Leader" (postholder and flightpreparation) failures. Lama Pilot wasn't under accusal. The court followed the authority accident report linked by Aesir.

[Aesir]

Ok now i see that you already mentioned the chief pilot in your previous post.

Very sad accident. The accident report is interesting expecially drawings and photos of the helicopter just prior to the accident.

As a layman one would think the Alouette pilot was to blame, expecially since he´s approaching the JetRanger from the left and behind so this makes the JR have right of way coming from the right and in front, however the report also says the JR is higher than the Alouette and from my vague memory of aviation rules right of way one should not cut in front of an aircraft which is on approach and lower?

However one can also see that the Chief pilot and JR pilot also are partly to blame for not coordinating the operations better.

Just shows that we as pilots have many things to take care of and as CP we can be held responsible for things happening far away.

I have no personal knowledge of the people involved, I´m just wondering what I can learn of this, hope no one is offended!